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Saturday, July 13, 2013

Next to the adorable smiling face of a young boy read the words, "Let's wipe out cancer, diabetes and autism in his lifetime."

The
last item in that tagline -- "autism" -- is what got these Seattle
Children's Hospital ads pulled from King County Metro buses last Friday.

The
Autistic Self Advocacy Network's Washington state chapter (ASAN-WA)
organized an online campaign objecting to the ad's juxtaposition of
autism with illnesses such as cancer and diabetes.

"Autism is a
disability, but it is not a disease. It is not a life-threatening
illness," said Matt Young, co-leader of ASAN-WA. "The idea it's a state
to be wiped out has much negative impact on our lives."

ASAN is a
leading organization in the neurodiversity movement, which seeks
acceptance of autism as a variation in mental function rather than a
disorder to be cured.

The ad, and the reaction to it, highlight
differences in the autism community between neurodiversity advocates who
view autism as another way of being and other groups more focused on
finding a cure.

On Friday, Seattle Children's posted an official
statement on its Facebook page: "We are sorry for the hurt and anger
these ads have caused -- that was never their intent."

In an
interview Monday, Katharine Fitzgerald, director of marketing and health
promotion at Seattle Children's said: "It's been difficult because we
do so much to support children, teens, and families affected by autism
here at Seattle Children's, and we're doing amazing research at our
research institute." The hospital also has an Autism Center that
provides treatment and support for individuals with autism spectrum
disorders.

The bus ad was one of three created as part of a
$70,000 campaign to raise awareness for Seattle Children's Research
Institute. The language of the campaign is meant to reflect the "breadth
and depth" of the institute's research arm, according to Fitzgerald.
The campaign rolled out on Monday of last week. The ads are expected to
be replaced with a new version within the next two weeks.

Last
Tuesday evening, a member of ASAN-WA brought the ad to Young's
attention, and he contacted the hospital to lodge a complaint. Things
only picked up, Young said, when he wrote a blog post calling on others,
who like him have autism, to post on Seattle Children's Facebook page.

"Autistic
people such as myself do not need a cure, instead, we need people to
accept us for what we are and to celebrate our gifts as well as they
would celebrate anyone's," wrote Beth Ann Vosskuhler-Waleski on
Facebook, echoing the sentiments of several comments on the page.

How
to allocate money between finding a potential cure and helping autistic
individuals navigate their lives has divided autism advocacy groups.
Autism Speaks, one of the biggest national organizations, has been
criticized for devoting too much money to research aimed at eventually
eliminating autism.

"The funding priorities are drastically out of whack," Young said of ASAN-WA.

The
neurodiversity movement itself, which embraces the different abilities
of autistic individuals such as savants, has been criticized for being
less inclusive of low-functioning individuals who would most benefit
from effective treatment.

About Me

I am full-time Mass Communication faculty at Towson University in Maryland and adjunct faculty in the City University of New York (CUNY) Master's in Disability Studies program.
I research media and disability issues and wrote a 2010 book on the subject: Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media, published by Advocado Press.
The media have real power to define what the public knows about disability and that's what I research.